Lucy Danziger, editor-in-chief of the women's health magazine, is speaking out in defense of "retouching" the 27-year-old singer in order to make her "look her personal best" on the September issue.

"Yes. Of course we do retouching," Danziger writes in a post on Self.com. "Did we alter her appearance? Only to make her look her personal best."

Calling Clarkson "the picture of confidence," Danzinger writes, "I think this photo is the truest we have ever put out there on the newsstand."

But many readers have expressed disappointment and outrage over the digitally slim Clarkson. "Hey, hi, Self ladies: None this changes or explains the fact that YOU ALTERED THE BONE STRUCTURE OF HER FACE," write one reader on jezebel.com where the controversy is stewing.

Adds another reader: "Taking out red eye and airbrushing a pimple would be making her look her personal best. You completely changed the way her body looked. Why even bother asking Kelly Clarkson to pose in your magazine if you didn't think her body fit into your idea of what was best?"

In the Self article, Clarkson defends her figure. "When people talk about my weight, I'm like, 'You seem to have a problem with it; I don't. I'm fine!,' " Clarkson says. "I'm never trying to lose weight – or gain it," she added. "I'm just being!"

This is not the first photo flap the singer has been involved with: In January Clarkson wrote on her blog that "they Photoshopped the crap out of me!" on her All I Ever Wanted album cover image.